Overarching Story - Paolo Costantini 1701501
General Story Plot Aside from the individual character/family stories within the Breadcrumbs of Deception, there is also a main narrative plot concerning the King. As the King is ageing, many believe he will soon be too old to manage the mental strain of running an entire kingdom, the King himself being among those who hold that belief, despite refusing to outwardly express that to the other families and the public. Throughout the entirety of the game, the King will slowly alter his plans for how the kingdom will be left when he abdicates the throne and, more importantly, who it will be given to. As the interests of the different families differ so wildly, the player must first ensure this information does not become anything more than rumour to them in an attempt to minimise infighting, but also ensure that what they tell the King helps bring a bright future to the Kingdom without sacrificing the players own integrity in the eyes of the king. Not only does this leave both the player and the King in somewhat uncomfortable positions, having to hide the true nature of current times from the families, but it also puts the King at great risk, as if a family were to find out, at a time when the King has been swayed to make a decision in their favour, they may be inclined to speed the process of his abdication along forcefully. Side Plot Depending on the success of the Kings decrees throughout the game, three different event style stories can activate and take place in the kingdom. If the King's decisions and decrees are deemed unpopular and have too great a negative impact on public morale and happiness, then the lower class members of society in the Kingdom can rebel. Starting riots and angry mobs with the chance to kill off several important high ranking members of society as the rioting gets worse. This can be dealt with in one of two ways, the military approach being possible if those aspects have been favoured throughout by the King and the Public relief approach being available if the Carnons have been favoured enough to enable it but not enough to keep morale high. The military approach is far more efficient in dealing with the rioting quickly but is also more likely to have future negative effects, whilst the relief approach takes longer but can lead to positive lasting effects. If the King neglects the Kingdom military for too long and leaves it without necessary supplies and support, then the Kingdom can find itself subject to bandit raids and kidnappings, which will quickly drain the money from the reserves and lower public morale. The only way to counteract this event is to cut focus from all non military aspects of the kingdom for a time and focus heavily on reinforcing the military power of the kingdom via increasing the freedom the militant families have in dealing with the king and influencing his decisions. The final event is a major one that may only occur if public trust in the king has bottomed out entirely. The player will be approached by one of the Kings sons and is given an option, to continue trying to help the king, despite being heavily berated and threatened with the headsmans axe at every turn, or to drop support and side with the Son, again risking the players life if the Sons challenge fails, but ensuring the safety of the player characters position if the son is successful. If the son is successful, the throne will go to him and the game will continue as usual, but the focus and interests of the new king will be different than the old ones and public morale will reset, with a “New Ruler” modifier being added which increases both negative and positive morale changes for a short time.